A report from the Cato Institute opens with Horace Mann’s well-known conviction that public schools are the bedrock of a democratic society – a public good that should be made available to all. Yet the report, Is Public Schooling a Public Good? An Analysis of Schooling Externalities, improperly conflates the civic and economic definitions of a public good. Although the report begins with Mann’s vision of the role of public schools as building a better society, it then misleadingly shifts the analysis to the economic value of public schools as a market-based “good” like steel or corn. The report relies on a false equivalence of the civic and economic definitions of a public good to advance a proposal for de-funding public schools and introducing a nationwide education savings account (voucher) program. While there is extensive research on the educational purposes of schooling, the Cato report’s limited review of this literature consistently misrepresents the meaning, scope and implications of this literature. The result is a portrayal of public schools as “agents of harm” for what appears to be an ideologically driven thought experiment. Even for those who might be in favor of vouchers, the report’s imbalance, flawed logic and limited research base render the report of no use to policymakers.

The Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) directs states and districts to identify equity gaps in students’ access to excellent educators and transformative school leaders. States are encouraged to use Title II funds strategically in order to identify and remedy these gaps. A new report from The Education Trust draws on ESSA documents and state teacher equity plans to provide guidance to state leaders, including some sound advice—but with significant omissions. The report does not engage with thorny issues around alternative pathways into teaching, and it largely skirts issues around incentives for supporting teacher recruitment and retention in hard-to-staff schools. The report also does not consider what attracts teachers into the profession and into particular school environments. Likewise, the report fails to draw on the explicit remedies sought by ESSA to link high-quality leadership with strong teacher recruitment and retention. Instead, the report casts the teacher equity problem primarily in terms of labor supply shortages and treats teachers like interchangeable widgets. Relying heavily on advocacy sources, it misses an opportunity to unpack the root causes of the teacher retention problem, particularly the corrosive impact of past federal and state policies on the teaching profession. The report does not help state leaders understand how they might build incentives and cultures that draw strong teachers into high-need schools, and they will thus be left with an incomplete and insufficient set of tools for ensuring that all students have equitable access to excellent educators.